^ [open post]

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan doesn't believe in the mansion spirits, but she is being followed by something in a way that makes little sense.

It begins when she wakes up. Opening the drawer to the sideboard in her room to retrieve tea, she finds another gold chess piece wrapped neatly in ribbon. Lancelot didn't put it there - it hadn't been there when she made her pre-sleep cuppa the night before, and she woke up when he did and sleepily saw him off to his training; he hadn't gone near the drawer. She shuts the chess piece firmly away, makes her tea, and dresses blearily for her own archery practice.

There's a new bow in the closet, too. To her pleasure, it's a heavier one that requires a stronger pull - she's quite got used to the draw of the ones the closet first supplied to her.

After her shooting routine, she finds a lipstick in the precise shade Ingrid used to wear on the bathroom vanity. When she's showered and dressed for the rest of her day, she finds her favorite pastry - a sort of breakfast roll she used to get from the shop by the tube station she'd walk past on her way to work, back in London - on a platter in the kitchen.

It's when she opens one of the closets in the hall off the library to return a pile of laundered wash-cloths that she receives both some clarity and a deepening of the mystery: a jumble of assembled balloons tumbles out, made of some queer material and filled with a gas that keeps them afloat. The writing on them reads: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUSAN PEVENSIE.

She stares at them, perplexed.


Susan's birthday post! Three days (by our reckoning) and eight months (by her reckoning) early! Feel free to have your puppets run into her in any reasonable location at any point during the day; she's just going to be accumulating more Stuff she can't get rid of as the day goes on.

Comments

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She manages an impish smile at that. "Anything, eh?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye, Susan," kissing her forehead. "Anything. I love thee so well."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh," she says, breath catching, eyelashes fluttering. It's not a surprise, of course; he says such things often. But it still takes her aback sometimes. She tilts her face towards his. "Then perhaps I might bid one more kiss?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"That, my lady, is simple," pulling her closer yet, kissing her with focused intent.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I love you," she sighs, when she finally breaks the kiss and settles back against his chest. "You make everything so much better."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot keeps her close, shamelessly cuddling her. "I am glad. That is my dearest wish."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It occurs to me," she starts, and then stops - it's a thought tonally inconsistent with their date.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Softly, as he runs a hand along her back, "Say on, sweet."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It's only... I'm older than Peter, now. And I'm very nearly older than Edmund ever got to be, even in Narnia." Lucy goes without saying, but Lancelot was there when Susan aged past Lucy's oldest point; he read the letters she wrote.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He presses a kiss to her hair, holding her close and rubbing her arm. "I imagine that not thinking on it is not possible," quietly, "but with me thou mayest say anything that is on thy heart."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, my heart, I know I may." She tucks her arm across his chest. "This is something I do try not to dwell upon."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I agree thou shouldst not dwell on it," nuzzling her again, "but thou shouldst not ignore it. That is the advice thou wouldst give to me."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It is," she allows, turning her face up again for another kiss.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He kisses her sweetly, deeply, then when at last it breaks he kisses her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She captures his mouth in another kiss when his kisses approach her lips, shifting closer. It's intent, heartfelt, and slow; when she pulls back, she presses a kiss to his cheek, too, and then says, "I miss them, I suppose."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Of course thou dost," brushing back a few stray wisps of her hair, "they are thy family."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Yes, of course. I mean," she says, and sighs. "I don't know what I mean."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Thou needst not know," giving her a little squeeze. "It is complicated. It is a difficult time of year. I understand."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

This has Susan smiling at him helplessly. "You sound like me a month ago, my love," she says.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Perhaps I learned well from thee."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Her smile broadens. "As I learn from you," she says, some of her wistful air evaporating, supplanted by immense satisfaction.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He smiles back, similarly satisfied, and kisses her forehead. "Then we are well suited."